


reading the OED

by detectivemills



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Liam is literate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemills/pseuds/detectivemills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And it’s not like – it’s not like Liam’s doing this for </i>him<i>, the Guy. It’s just that whenever Liam comes across a particularly interesting new word – like, for example, </i>dulcarnon - a person in a dilemma<i>; that feels all too familiar – he flashes back to the Guy on the bus with his hulking, gilded books about art and history and art history and whatever else guys in leather jackets who take their educations seriously read.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	reading the OED

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because I am obsessed with cool words and I am obsessed with Liam Payne and then I was struck by lightning and realized I could use the internet to be obsessed with both these things at once. So. 
> 
> Didn't happen, not real, sorry for the inconvenience, etc. Dedicated to [Alyssa](http://aghastatmyself.tumblr.com/) – duh – who line-edited this with me for _weeks_ and always had a technical explanation for why my words didn't make sense. Thanks for always being in my audience of two, boo. Also:
> 
> me: au where liam reads [this book](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2300922.Reading_the_OED) to impress zayn  
> alyssa: au where liam reads

Ninety percent of the time, Liam comes within seconds of missing the bus.

Louis wakes him up at 8:30 on Mondays – “Because _I_ know how to regulate my sleep schedule!” – and makes up for it by slapping Liam's toast into the toaster before he gets in the shower. Liam usually has to grab it out of the air and break into a full sprint, hopping the guardrail and darting around hoards of recently departed bus riders before leaping up all four steps to make it before the driver pulls away from the curb. Mondays are dreadful.

He has a bit more time to himself on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but without Louis to help him along, he sleeps through most of his alarms. He ends up with about five extra minutes to do his hair and manages to catch the bus while it’s still idling instead of while it’s pulling away. There’s some jogging, but it's a bit less tortuous.

It’s only on Wednesday that he gets to run for pleasure. Class isn't until late in the afternoon, so Liam gets up around lunch to circle the block over and over, dancing around puddles of melted snow and slush. The bus hums by and he makes sure to run in the opposite direction, refusing to let it sneak up on him. He gets a shower in before he has to make it to campus, but he can usually see the big blue monster lumbering toward him as he’s leaving his door. He times it about right, most Wednesdays.

Fridays might as well not even exist.

Every week Louis demands Liam join him at some bar with Thirsty Thursday specials, and every weekend Liam waffles and bends and breaks. Louis’s will is not a thing to be reckoned with (and neither is his bar tab).

Liam doesn’t make it to class on Fridays; they’re halfway through the semester and Louis is seven for seven. He consoles Liam with a nice breakfast of runny eggs and Cheerios – “No matter what time it is, your first meal of the day is always breakfast, Leemo” – and the fact that most of the stuff the world needs to know about global environmental change has already been discovered. It absolutely has.

“There’s scientists to figure out that stuff, dig it all up. Soil and shit. Glaciers. They know it all.” Louis waves it off, geography and the environment and whatever else, crunching on his cereal. “Sound engineers – you lot can do without it.”

Liam presses his palms into his eye sockets. When he opens them, Louis is rearing back, sliding a glass of orange juice across the table. It tips against Liam’s elbow and clicks against the table, miraculously remaining upright.

Louis raises his eyebrows. Liam smiles. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon.

Another three day weekend it is.

 

 

 

 

 

The one alright thing about the bus is the Guy in the Leather Jacket.

Liam’s only caught a few very specific things about him: a bit of light reflecting off a button on his backpack, a shock of yellow across one of his black boots, a slice of his shaded cheekbone. Liam sees him in his peripheral when he’s running for the bus, the Guy ambling off a few seconds before Liam makes it on. There’s never enough time out on the street for Liam to spare him a second glance, but most days he gets to watch the Guy as he walks in one direction and the bus zooms in the other. It’s the only bit of zen Liam gets on the bus: watching the leather jacket retreat into the distance.

Liam goes to class and then the gym and sometimes even the library – or passes _through_ the library – and gets back on the bus to head home. He finds Louis tucked into the couch with the television on too loud. A DVRed episode of _Family Feud_.

“Hey,” Louis says, eyes not moving from the screen. He’s sat up weirdly straight, bare feet wrapped in a blanket and tucked up under his thighs; the house is colder than usual and Liam knows Louis hasn’t had clean socks in over a month.

“You got this in the mail today,” Louis tells him, indicating nothing. Then he shouts, “Balloons!”

“What?” Liam asks, because he isn’t sure if he got a letter or a balloon delivery.

“This.” Louis scrapes his hands across their coffee table without looking down. He lifts an envelope toward Liam’s face. “This one. Strippers?”

Liam grabs it from his hand, digs his finger in at the corner. “What’s the question?”

“Something about birthdays. Birthday presents. Most popular birthday presents.”

“Money,” Liam says absently, sinking down onto the couch and pulling out a single sheet of paper. It’s got their school’s insignia across the top. “Puppies. Cake. Segeway.”

“Congratulations, Liam,” Louis booms. “If the question was about what toddlers want for their birthdays, you’d have gotten them all.”

“Oh shit,” Liam whispers. Louis shouts, “Streamers!”

“Oh shit, Lou.” He reads the first few lines again, scans for a signature – Dean of Academic Affairs – and says, “Oh my god.”

Louis pulls himself away from the screen and throws his arms over Liam’s bent knee. “What?”

“Turn that fucking down,” Liam kind of squeals. “I’m gonna die.”

“What?” Louis asks again.

“I’m failing Geography 203.” Liam looks over at him.

Louis face crumples up. “Really, man?”

Liam holds the paper up to read from. “‘This notice is to inform you that a grade of F is set to appear on your transcript at the conclusion of the semester.’”

“Fuck,” Louis says.

“‘You are advised to consult an academic counselor to discuss your options for either completing the course or withdrawing.”’

“ _Fuck._ ”

“‘Your bursar’s account has been charged the requisite course fee ($3,000). This fee is nonrefundable.”’

“Fuck!”

“I -- ” Liam starts. “This -- I can’t do this.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “It would seem as though you’re already doing it, Lee-yum.”

“No, like -- I mean, I can’t. I can’t waste three thousand dollars.” The paper wafts to the floor as he drops his head in his hands. “My mum can’t afford that. I can’t.”

Louis’s face softens. “I’m sorry, Li, I didn’t mean -- ”

“No, I -- ” Liam rubs at his face. “I know.”

Louis shuts off the television, the little staticy zap bathing the room in silence. “If anyone can pick themselves up from something like this, it’s you,” he says. “You can.”  
“How?” Liam asks desperately. “I’ve only got eight weeks to pull this grade from an F to at least a C. At _least_.”

“Find someone to help you,” Louis suggests. “Someone who’s gone to class.” He raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you could charm your way into someone’s notebook.”  
Liam sighs. “Why would anyone want to help me.”

“Because you’re willing to do the work.” Louis scoots over until he’s pressed all up against Liam’s side, winding an arm around his neck. “You’re willing to try. People appreciate that.”

Liam turns, tilting his head back to look down his nose at Louis. “Do they?”

“They do!” Louis insists. The hand hanging down over Liam’s shoulder reaches up to pull at Liam’s ear. “Find someone who looks studious and pop the question. The worst they could do is say no.”

Liam tries to shrug Louis’s hand away reproachfully. “And then I fail!”

“And then you find someone else.”

Liam forgets how good Louis is at things like this: talking him down off the ledge, soothing his frazzled nerves and lulling him into what usually turns out to be a false – but nevertheless comforting – sense of security. Liam has a lot of work ahead of him, but he knows Louis has his back. There may be nights when Louis strongly suggests Liam does six shots of Jameson, but Louis really is always there for him.

Liam settles in against Louis’s side and lets Louis stick a finger in his ear. At least he didn’t get the chance to put it in his mouth first. “Thanks, Lou.”

“No problem, babe,” Louis says into Liam’s shoulder. “But you’ll have to find me someone else to keep on my arm this Thursday night.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

 

 

 

 

His reward on Friday is two-fold: he finds someone to tutor him in geography and sits across from the Guy in the Leather Jacket for exactly four minutes.

Louis comes home while he’s brushing his teeth – Liam gapes, but can’t ask – and stands silently in the bathroom doorway, something like a half-asleep scowl draped across his face. Liam leans over the sink to spit but Louis holds his eyes in the mirror and when he finally looks down to jab his toothbrush under the water, Louis lets out a scream of laughter, a cackle that shatters Liam’s brain into a million sparkly little pieces. Liam’s mouth is foamy and he wants to spit it at Louis and hiss _the sun’s barely up and you look like death warmed over_ but he’s too slow and Louis is too fast and he’s already gone. When Liam turns off the water, he can hear Louis thwack into his bed.

Liam approaches his new routine with low expectations, making it out to the bus stop at a brisk walk with his hair still sleep-mussed and his sweatpants loose around his ankles. When he gets on it’s still mostly empty; he doesn’t pay much attention to the other passengers, yawning and blinking just as slowly as he is. He pulls off his backpack and slips into a seat, pillows his head on it for a second. When he looks up and sees the Guy in the Leather Jacket settling in across from him, his eyes feel like they might fall out of his skull.

The Guy has too much stuff, a backpack and a canvas-sized bag and something that looks like a burlap sack taking up two seats by itself. He’s standing the maybe canvas bag up behind the other two, leaning it against the back of the seat and tucking it in behind the weight of what must be his books. When he’s settled, he takes one out – _Literature in Translation: Modernism in Russia and Eastern Europe_ – and lets it drop open. The bus is so quiet that Liam can hear the spine stretching, the pages sticking and sliding and finally drifting loose as the Guy finds his place.

Liam takes a second and focuses on schooling his face into something less than shock and terror; mild shock and debilitating embarrassment at his obvious uncleanliness, perhaps. He scratches at his head, tries to flatten his hair. This guy, he’s -- he’s _beautiful_. Liam takes a luxurious second to look him up and down: paint-speckled boots, stick-thin legs in age-soft black denim, a grey sweatshirt with a baggy hood pooling around the collar of his leather jacket. His hair sticks up in a way Liam knows is purposeful, knows looks better than his, and knows he wants to run his hands through. His cheeks are dark with a few days worth of stubble and Liam watches his eyelashes flicker as his eyes scan his book, long and really, really pretty, and Liam wants to lean closer, see what those lashes look like up close --

Liam averts his eyes. His eyes are immediately drawn back. The pages of the Guy’s book are gilded. They’re shiny. And there’s something shiny on the Guy’s face, pricks of light somewhere near his ears. Is Liam staring straight at the sun? That’s what it feels like.

The bus shudders and jerks to a stop and the Guy looks toward the front as the doors whoosh open. When he turns back, his eyes meet Liam’s quickly. Liam looks up, just above the Guy’s head so he’s actually staring straight into the sun, piercingly bright this early in the morning. Something in his brain starts to melt.  
  
He takes out his phone and googles _Russia_ , then adds _why to read about_ in front of it. It’s enough of a distraction to keep him from staring at any of the beautiful things in front of him.

They get to campus and Liam tucks his phone back into his pocket, resolutely staring at things that aren’t producing light. He chances it as he’s pushing through the rear door of the bus, looking back to see the Guy struggling to shoulder his backpack while clutching his other two bags.  
  
Liam wedges his way between the flaps of the door to keep it open, watching the Guy with less apprehension than before: now he’s here to help. He pulls back the door as the Guy makes his way over, balancing his stuff in a way that is very obviously impossible. He has to turn sideways to make it through the door, falling off the bus with a huff.

Liam lets the doors slap shut. He’s turning onto the sidewalk when the Guy says _thank you_ into his own shoulder, wedging the burlap sack under his arm. Liam does a strange twirl back around to see if the words were for him, but the Guy is kind of only half looking up, the last ten seconds of their intersecting lives already half forgotten. There’s something bright and shiny and even more beautiful in his face, in the bit that Liam can see, and this time it’s definitely not the sun.  
  
So Liam says, “Yeah,” out into the morning air and heads off to class.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s missed too much class time to be useful; he stares at his notebook and writes down phrases that sound like they might be important: _population pyramids (but sometimes a square??)_ ; _carrying capacity industrial revolution bad at farming – we all **die**_ ; _eutrophication = no more lily pads where will frogs live_.

He’s trying.

“Hi,” he says to the girl next to him when class ends. For the past hour, she had been patiently highlighting her notes and sketching miniature diagrams in the margins. Liam usually leaves people with exceptional study habits to themselves; they just make him feel dumb. But he needs this girl’s help. He needs anyone’s help.  
  
“I. Uh.” He didn’t really prepare for this part. “I’m in need of --”

“You usually sleep through this class, don’t you?” she asks, slipping her books into her backpack. She stands up and smiles at him thinly.

Liam shakes his head. “How did you know?”

Her smile gets bigger. “I’ve never seen you here before. And you need help. There’s a study group that meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings, fourth floor of the library.”

“Thank you so much,” Liam gushes. “I -- I don’t even -- ” He stops himself, sticks out a hand. “Liam.”

“I’m Olivia.” She shakes it. “Don’t forget your morning coffee, Liam,” she says. “Matutinal learning best be your thing.”

If Liam knew what that meant, he’d be able to do something other than grin and wave.

 

 

 

 

 

He tries to look it up when he gets home – matutynal. Matutinall. Matituniall. Maybe he didn’t hear it right. Maybe it’s not a real word. Maybe she made it up.

Louis gets him out of the house that night, but he orders a copy of his textbook the next morning and combs through his sparse notes for most of the afternoon, scanning the syllabus in an attempt to get a jump on what he’s missed. He downloads all the lectures and tries to figure out what was most important: Thomas Malthus. Population growth. Water scarcity.

Louis finds him on the living room floor in the early evening, organizing what he’s already got. “Someone actually wants to study with you?” he asks caustically. “What a humanitarian.”

“Fuck off, Tommo.”

Louis slaps him on the back, more encouragement than apology. “Don’t forget to bring snacks!” he pipes.

He gets up extra early on Tuesday to pick up some donuts and ends up only ten minutes late. He finds Olivia and two others on the fourth floor, an entire table filled by their notebooks and computers. When he opens his box, Olivia’s eyes light up.

“Wish you’d been coming around all semester,” says another girl, and the guy next to her nods happily.

They catch him up to speed in record time and Olivia fills in the gaps by saying things like, “Population pyramids come in a lot of different shapes, actually,” and, “The frogs will be okay.” Liam’s shocked at how much he picks up between laughs. He’s never tried like this before, never really bothered with anything that wasn’t soundboard tech or music theory, and it feels good to be able to do something. He feels like he’s getting ahold of his own destiny. Master of his fate and all that.

He’s riding the bus home before he’d even be awake most days, hoping to get in a run and a shower before his next class, and just as it’s ready to pull away from the curb he catches sight of the leather jacket gliding up the stairs and down the aisle. This time he pulls out _Manet and the Object of Painting_ and Liam wants to scream, wants to say, _Teach me something I don’t know, teach me anything,_ but instead he just watches the Guy look down at his book, tongue poking out to dab at his ink-blackened thumb every time he flicks to a new page.

It’s a full ten minutes this time; Liam happens to check his watch. They stand to exit at the same stop and Liam lets his eyes run up the guy again, boots with new swaths of paint and jeans thin and worn at the seams and a ratty white t-shirt and when he gets to his face, the guy is grinning at him, sly and wolfish, and Liam turns on his heel to face the door as the bus sputters to a stop. He tries not to break into a run on his way home.

 

 

 

 

 

Liam doesn’t see him on Thursday and that’s fine. He’s fine with it. Really.

He picks up more donuts and figures out the difference between land cover and land use and doesn’t let himself go home: he stays at the library and works on some other homework, catches up on classes he knows he’s neglected since he zoned in on geography. It’s been another hour when someone tries to pull his chair out from under him. Literally.

“Too fucking muscley, you are,” Louis says too loudly. “Or is this chair nailed to the ground?” He kicks at one of the legs so the metal vibrates under Liam.

“Why are you doing this?” Liam asks earnestly. “I’m working.”

Louis upends his bag onto table, snatches up a notebook and slides into the chair across from Liam. “Me too. Work work work.” He flips open to a page that is very obviously only doodles. “Work work work. Worky work.”

“I didn’t even know you owned this many books.” Liam sees at least two novels and some sort of history textbook. There are a couple of smaller texts, stuff that looks like it’s just been freed from its shrink wrap. “What the hell is this?”

“‘ _Reading the OED_ ,’ it says.” Louis fingers the title. “Right here, it says that.”

“Why do you have it?” Liam opens it up to a page in the middle. It looks like the lists of vocabulary words he used to get in grade school, but much harder.

“For my History of the English Language class,” Louis says, already doodling. “Expand my vocabulary, improve my diction, yadda yadda yadda.”

Liam flips to the beginning of the alphabetized chapters: abluvion, accismus, acnestis. Balaamite, balter, bayard. Cachinnator, cacotechny, cacozealous. What strange words.

“Why are you bothering with that?” Louis asks, not really looking up.

“I dunno,” Liam says, skipping to the next chapter. “It’s kinda neat.”

“Since when are you into non-required reading?”

Liam shrugs. “It’s cool to learn something new every once in awhile.”

Louis shakes his head slowly. “It’s like I don’t even know you.”

He’s halfway through the D chapter when he finds the word desiderium – a yearning, specifically for a thing once had, but no more.

And it’s stupid, but for a second Liam’s back on the bus, staring into the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

The words make him think of the Guy in the Leather Jacket.

Engouement – irrational fondness; check. Gove – to stare at stupidly; pretty much. Incompetible – not within the range of a person’s competence; ouch. The sad reality of the situation.

And it’s not like – it’s not like Liam’s doing this for _him_ , the Guy. It’s just that whenever Liam comes across a particularly interesting new word – like, for example, dulcarnon - a person in a dilemma; that feels all too familiar – he flashes back to the Guy on the bus with his hulking, gilded books about art and history and art history and whatever else guys in leather jackets who take their educations seriously read.

Liam doesn’t try using any of the words until he finds _matutinal_ on the first page of the M section. He puts a big circle around it, reminded of how awestruck and dopey he felt when it came out of Olivia’s mouth. _Matutinal._ It tripped off her tongue like it was her own name, as easy as a curse. _Ma-tu-ti-nal._  
  
“Ma-tu-ti-nal,” he says slowly, out into his empty room. “‘Active or wide awake in the morning hours.’” He pauses. “Matutinal. Yeah.”

Louis remains unsupportive. He catches Liam reading in the living room and at the kitchen table and, in one particularly startling instance, in the bathroom.

“This trash!” he shouts as he snatches it out of Liam’s hands, waving it above his head. Liam tries to kick the door shut from the toilet, tries to slam it shut or crush Louis’s head in it or anything to diffuse the situation, but Louis’s already got his entire person in the room. He’s wielding the book like some sort of weapon. “Absurd!”

“Get out!” Liam yells, elbows dug into his thighs. “You’re such a fucking -- ugh!”

“What?” Louis hoists himself up onto the ledge of the sink.

Liam digs his knuckles into Louis’s kneecap, hoping his legs will snap off or something. “Can I go to the bathroom in peace?”

“If that’s what makes you happy, Payne,” Louis grumbles, still brandishing the book, “but I’m taking this _back_.”

It takes Liam several long minutes to regroup. When his face has turned back to its natural color, he finds Louis laid across the couch, buried in the M section where Liam had his receipt-scrap bookmark.

“‘Small and attractive,’” he tells Liam, pointing down at the text. Liam leans over and moves Louis’s jabbing finger out of the way to find the word _minionette._ “It’s _me_ ,” Louis finishes.

Liam yanks the book out of his hands. “Unsurprisingly, it has the word ‘minion’ in it.”

“Can’t believe you’re still on with this,” Louis says, disgust dripping from his voice. “It’s like -- do you think all this wordy mumbo-jumbo is going to magically fix your grades?”

“Obviously not,” Liam says. “It’s just an interesting book, is all.”

Louis sighs. “It just doesn’t make sense. What are you getting out of this? Do you think it’s going to, like, give you a stronger tongue?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “You know, Liam, just because you gave _one girl_ a bloody lip whilst making out doesn’t mean you have to -- ”

“No, we don’t -- no, never,” Liam interrupts. “Never talk about that. And it’s not that, anyway.”

Louis’s smile is all dumb charm. “If you say so.”

He hates Louis sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

But the next day, when he drops _deteriorism_ in a conversation about one of his colleague's quiz grades, Olivia swings her head toward him, eyebrows hiked up.

“What a word,” she smiles, and Liam smiles back because somehow, of all people, she gets it.

“A bit of a downer, though,” the girl with the steadily-declining quiz average says, looking vaguely hurt.

“And somewhat fatalistic, to be fair,” Olivia adds solemnly, but Liam is already talking over her to apologize. He pointedly doesn’t mention that he, the loser who joined the study group halfway through the semester, has gotten two Bs and an A-minus on his last three quizzes. He’s keeping that to himself.

There’s still something of a vocabulary-induced high buzzing at the surface of his skin when he gets to the bus stop. He knows he’s closer than ever to locking up that passing grade; it’s a miracle, really, and his study group only gets half the credit. He feels weightless, on top of the world, filled with sugar-coated donuts and knowledge. Sugar and _knowledge._

It’s a rule of physics or some strange law of the universe or something, because of _course_ the Guy is on the bus and of _course_ there’s an empty seat right across from him that Liam’s drawn to like a magnet. He feels stupid and brave and _ready_ and suddenly his pulse start to rise, beating heavy in his throat. He’s going to say something. He knows he’s going to say something. The excitement short circuits his brain and he opens his mouth, gets out, “I -- ” before he realizes the Guy has headphones tucked into his ears, some too-cool-for-school slow jam leaking out over the hum of the bus, tinny and quiet. Liam barely noticed, too busy tasting his own tongue, too busy trying not to scream, and he can’t get his mouth to close before the Guy flicks his eyes up and catches him.

The Guy cocks his head to the side and reaches up to free one of his ears. Liam snaps his mouth closed, body suddenly tense. His pulse isn’t racing anymore; it might have actually stopped.

The Guy lifts his chin and hesitates for a second before he says, “Sorry?”

“I --” Liam stammers. What did he want to say? What feelings was he trying to express?

“Your book,” he starts, because the Guy has some new reading material in his lap – _Ways of Seeing_. “Looks very -- uh.” It looks like a book: it has pages and two covers and text, presumably. What else does it look like? What is Liam trying to say? What words?

“Very -- insightive.”

The Guy’s eyes narrow a bit, confused, as his lips pull up into a sort of stupefied smirk. Liam watches him blink, watches his lashes flash blue-black against his cheek, but he also might be having a sort of strange, transient out-of-body experience: he’s standing next to himself, watching him say the word: _insightive_. He’s floating above the bus and instead of a horn honking, he hears it again, scream-loud: _insightive_. It’s chalked onto the street and written in the clouds and it’s the only thing every single person he ever meets for the rest of his life will ever say to him: _insightive. Insightive. Insightive_.

“Insightive,” the Guy repeats slowly. He’s still looking at Liam, mouth quirked in what could be amusement. It could also be the half-smile that comes before mocking laughter. It could also be well-disguised disgust. “Yeah.”

Liam feels his mouth close. He blinks. The Guy sits back and flips open his book. It’s only when he looks up for a split second, smile still pulling on at lips, that Liam realizes he’s still staring.

 

 

 

 

 

Liam’s body gets him home, somehow. He only realizes he’s inside when the prickling warmth of the sun is replaced with the quiet drone of the living room television. Louis throws some words at him but he ambles by, through his gaping bedroom door and falling face-first onto his bed.

The television fades to near silence when his door snicks shut. His weight shifts to the side as Louis crawls in next to him and settles up against his ribs.

Liam doesn’t move. After a minute, Louis finally asks, “What’s up?”

Liam huffs a warm sigh into his pillow. “I said something stupid.”

“And?” Louis asks.

“ _And_?” Liam repeats.

“What did you say? Did you say ‘stupid’?”

Even though his eyes are closed, Liam goes through the motions of rolling them. “Nevermind. Nothing.”

“You said nothing? Or ‘nothing’?”

“I should’ve said nothing,” Liam tells his pillow. “It would’ve been better than what I actually said.”

Liam feels Louis’s bony knee against his side. “So what did you say?”

“Nothing! I don’t want to talk about it! I’m never saying anything again!”

“Liam,” Louis says shortly. “Liam. Liam. Liiiiiiiiiiiii-am. Liam.”

Liam flops over onto his back, away from Louis’s stray limbs. “You honestly don’t know when to shut up, do you?”

“First of all,” Louis ticks off on his fingers, “no. And second of all, you’re pretty much my favorite person in the world.” He stops for a second. “Tied for my favorite person in the world with David Beckham. And we’re not counting my mom.”

Liam looks at him sideways. “And?”

“And you do this thing where you, like -- you freak out about stuff and won’t let me help you.” He puts on this weird face that he must think makes him look smart. “Just tell me.”

Liam sighs. “It’s stupid, it’s -- there’s the guy on the bus who -- ” It sounds harsh on his ears, saying it out loud. “He wears a leather jacket and he has a really incredible face. Like, unreal. These long feathery eyelashes and this stubble and -- and hair. On top.”

“Alright.” Louis nods to show he’s following. “Hair on top.”

“And he reads these big books with all these pages and he's always covered in paint. He’s clearly smart.” Liam closes his eyes. “He’s so smart and I said the word ‘insightive.’”  
  
Silence. After a few seconds, he opens his eyes to make sure Louis didn’t leave the room. He’s still there, staring down at Liam.

“You said ‘insightive’?”

“Yeah, and -- ”

“What did he say?”

“He said it back. And said, ‘yeah.’ And maybe smiled. And maybe laughed. At me, not -- it wasn’t a joke. I don’t think. I don’t know, I think I was crying. I think I was crying tears of blood, ‘cause it all rushed to my face and I couldn’t -- ”

“Yeah, no,” Louis interrupts. “Beckham’s number one. You’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“Who cares if you said a made-up word? It’s prolly a word somewhere.”

“It’s _not_.”

“But who cares? Someone else has already said that word a million times.”

Liam sits up. “You don’t --”

“Oh, I do,” Louis says. “But if I cried in my bed every time I said something stupid, I’d spend my whole life under my duvet.”

Liam feels the panic whirring in his stomach settling, winding down instead of up. “I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“It is.” Louis grabs both his shoulders to give Liam a good shake, bouncing the bed gently. “All you've gotta do is get back on that fucking bus.”

 

 

 

 

 

Liam gets back on the bus because he _has_ to.

He’s never going to think about the Guy again. He’s going to sit at the back of the bus where he’ll never be near him and stare down into the depths of his phone so he’ll never see him. He stuffs his headphones into his ears so there’s no chance of hearing him, either. All of Liam’s senses are devoted to anything but his fellow bus riders, and by the time he’s saved all fourteen pigs on level eighty-seven of Pet Rescue, the bus is moving.

It’s only a few seconds before the feet appear in front of his. The heavy black boots and the artful drops of paint. The loose laces and the frayed cuffs of denim.  
  
There are at least twenty-five unoccupied seats and the Guy is right in front of him.

Liam won’t let himself look past his shins, past a drip of green that cuts across his lower leg. Liam won’t look any higher, won’t think about the legs that wear those jeans or the arms in that leather jacket. He is resolutely not thinking about any of it.

It’s a few more minutes of measured staring into his phone – level eighty-eight, level eighty-nine- half of level ninety – before Liam truly starts to panic. The bus lurches to the left and that’s probably the curve around the student center, right before Liam’s stop, and he has to sit up and stretch out his hunched back. He looks to the window to see what the outside world looks like, to be reminded that there are things on this earth that are not contained within this bus.

He’s trying not to look, trying to keep his eyes to himself, but Liam’s will is poor at best; his eyes run across the torso across from him, the shiny metal zipper of the jacket swinging slowly side to side, the collar folded neatly against wiry shoulders, and then he realizes the Guy is staring straight at him.

Liam starts, flinching in his seat, and the Guy’s mouth drops open like he might be talking and _he might be talking_ so Liam yanks out an earbud hard enough that it loops around his finger and lets his eyes rest on the Guy for the first time ever.

It’s just another second before the Guy asks, “Nothing to chat about today?”

And his mouth doesn’t close, it just curls up into the smartest smile Liam has ever seen.

Liam feels the moment stretch on forever, but he manages to smile back just as the Guy is standing up. He realizes where he is only a second later – those words and that smile, those were for _him_ – and he feels the thrum of the bus under his feet almost a second too late: this is his stop too.

He’s all but stumbling off the bus and the Guy is just standing there, waiting without looking like he’s waiting. Liam puts one foot in front of the other, stepping up onto the curb like it might be rigged with landmines.

The Guy just watches Liam’s face, looking like he’s prepared to stand in silence, eyes locked with Liam’s for all eternity. Liam feels that weird burbling of courage in his stomach and hears himself say, “I said ‘insightive.’”

The Guy nods, a solemn look on his face. He’s squinting a bit into the shock of morning sun. “You did, yeah.”

“Yeah,” Liam says with all his breath. “I did.”

Liam’s taking him in, the way his eyes might actually be glowing and the ripple of ink under the collar of his shirt when the Guy turns and starts to move. He looks over his shoulder at Liam, rooted to his safe square of sidewalk, says, “C’mon,” and it’s more beautiful than any of the words Liam could ever hope to find in a book.


End file.
